


Stupid

by josephina_x



Series: Dimension 46’\-A [24]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (sort of?), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, One Year Later, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: Stan Pines is not stupid. (...supposedly.) But should he really believe that when it's coming from a couple of demons, especially when one of 'em is apparently the devil himself?A follow-on / immediate continuation from Ch. 23 (/ "Ch 91") of "The BlueBill Arc(!!!)"here.As for the short catch-up summary / premise: it's summer 2013 in Dimension 46'\, and Dipper and Mabel are back in Gravity Falls, along with their two favorite grunkles and a human-looking Bill, "because cultists." Stan managed to talk Bill into a truce, but they all want Bill gone. The twins use a time tape to try to change things, but the timeline splits and they end up in a new dimension in the spring of 1971. The grunkles, Bill, and another friendlier Bill (don't ask) go after them to get them back. Here, Lee doesn't break Sixer's science fair project, but the project was still sabotaged by *somebody*, Sixer gets kicked out of the family instead of Lee, and Lee says 'hell with it' and leaves too. The grunkles stay for a week to finish the boat for them, then leave.The grunkles think they're done here, but Bill is watching Lee still.
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Stan Pines, Filbrick Pines & Stan Pines & Ford Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines & Caryn Romanoff Pines
Series: Dimension 46’\-A [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/861064
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: josephina_x's Gravity Falls Dimension 46'\ (dash-letter) fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: Stupid  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Characters: Stan Pines, Ford Pines, Bill Cipher, Filbrick Pines, Caryn Romanoff Pines, Carla McCorkle, Other Gravity Falls Characters  
> Summary: Stan Pines is not stupid. (...supposedly.) But should he really believe that when it's coming from a couple of demons, especially when one of 'em is apparently the devil himself? 
> 
> A follow-on / immediate continuation from Ch. 23 (/ "Ch 91") of "The BlueBill Arc(!!!)" [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22179454/chapters/52953205). 
> 
> As for the short catch-up summary / premise: it's summer 2013 in Dimension 46'\, and Dipper and Mabel are back in Gravity Falls, along with their two favorite grunkles and a human-looking Bill, "because cultists." Stan managed to talk Bill into a truce, but they all want Bill gone. The twins use a time tape to try to change things, but the timeline splits and they end up in a new dimension in the spring of 1971. The grunkles, Bill, and another friendlier Bill (don't ask) go after them to get them back. Here, Lee doesn't break Sixer's science fair project, but the project was still sabotaged by *somebody*, Sixer gets kicked out of the family instead of Lee, and Lee says 'hell with it' and leaves too. The grunkles stay for a week to finish the boat for them, then leave. 
> 
> The grunkles think they're done here, but Bill is watching Lee still.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: Short notes are included in the summary. I may try posting to this once a week (or spacing out the posts to once a week if I get and stay ahead of the game). We'll see…
> 
> For those who are new and want a longer explanation:
> 
> In Dimension 46'\, it's the summer after Weirdmageddon, and Dipper and Mabel are back in Gravity Falls, along with their two favorite grunkles. ...and a human-looking Bill. Because a bunch of cultists brought Bill back. Long story short, Ford crashes the summoning ritual and catches Bill, Stan talks Bill into agreeing not to attack the kids or anybody, not call up his Henchmaniac friends, and not start another Weirdmageddon, as long as they don't attack him first -- basically a truce -- and Bill is now living at the Shack as part of this little arrangement. This is, of course, driving Ford up the wall. Bill doesn't like it, but seems to be going along with it for now. Stan is just trying to keep everybody safe. Dipper and Mabel not only don't like it, but decide to grab themselves a time tape and actually do something about it!
> 
> ...except that Bill locked down all time travel in the dimension that hadn't 'already happened' back during Weirdmageddon and that hasn't changed... so the Mystery Twins don't go back in time in their own dimension, they end up in another newly-created branched-off dimension from their own: 46'\\+. Oops.
> 
> Grunkles Stan and Ford of course flip out over this, and Bill isn't exactly super-happy about this either. Bill and his 'sister' (Miz Cipher, a Bill Cipher from another author and fic 'verse) take the two grunkles to the other dimension to get the twins back.
> 
> Enter seventeen year old Lee and Sixer, circa spring 1971, the day before Stan was originally kicked out.
> 
> The folks from 46'\ largely stay away from the younger grunkles that day, and Lee doesn't hear about the college admissions folks so he doesn't go to the school that night.
> 
> Lee didn't break Sixer's project, but somebody still sabotaged the thing without getting caught. So since it just looks like Sixer screwed up all on his own, Sixer is the one who gets kicked out of the family for being a useless screw-up instead of Lee. Oops.
> 
> Lee takes one good look at the situation with this jerk, says 'hells with it', and leaves too.
> 
> After realizing what happened, the grunkles stay an extra week to try and fix things for their younger counterparts; Stan more or less forcibly enlists Bill's help in this, up to and including sending the two demons to school with their younger selves. And while the teens and demons are keeping each other busy during the day, Stan and Ford spend the time fixing up the boat for them to live in and making enough money to tide the teens over 'til the end of the school year. Then they all leave.
> 
> But not before Miz gives one of the students at the school a phone to keep in contact with her via interdimensional chatroom, and Bill gives Lee a similar device to be able to call Stanley (via him) for help.
> 
> The grunkles pretty much think they're done here, but Bill is watching Lee still.

\---

When Stan woke up, the first thing he thought was _'Where the hell am I?'_

The first thing he _did_ (after the sleep had cleared outta his brain) was sit up and _curse_ out loud, because he'd fallen asleep at the kitchen table in the cabin on the deck of their boat.

... The cursing was not because he'd fallen asleep, exactly. It was more because when he looked up and looked around, he saw that Sixer wasn't there, asleep in his bunk.

He'd fallen asleep because he was dead-tired from all the shit with that stupid science fair project earlier, and with the damn demons next, and with all the pacing back and forth inside their little cabin later. But older-Ford was probably right about running off after Sixer being worse, so he'd forced himself not to go after him, home. He'd paced, and he'd paced, and then the kettle had gone off, and then he'd sat down and poured himself his own cup of hot chocolate to drink, just to give himself something to do with his hands, and before he'd even finished the mug, he'd fallen asleep. --Not a problem, exactly. Not on his own. It wasn't exactly a problem that he hadn't woken up again after that either, not until now.

The problem was that his brother hadn't come back to the boat again last night. And it had been a whole night since the last time he'd saw Sixer last, now.

Stan was reaching for his pocket and pulling out the chocolate-bar phone thing almost before he realized he was doing it. (He needed _help_. Those older thems had made everything worse. So they oughta be okay with helping him fix it, then -- right? They--)

He stared down at it for a minute, and nearly set it down on the table.

...that devil-demon had said that he could call whenever he wanted to talk to that old-man him. And that if he had any problems, that they would--

...would _what?_ Come running to pat him on the head, just because he didn't know where his brother was, right then? They'd _left_. They had those… other two kids to take care of, Shermie's grandkids, and…

...and that old-man him had _hugged_ him before he'd left…

...and that old Sixer hadn't left him alone with that demon at the end, had refused to do that, had yanked the devil-demon out of his face when he'd started getting all--

\--and the devil-demon had said he was some kind of _priority_ to that old-man him, now? That he was on some kind of _list?!?_ Part of his _family??_

...probably pretty far on down that list of family to care about, though, if he even really was at all. Stan couldn't think he'd be anything otherwise. They'd set them up for stuff through graduation and turning 18, and they were done with them now, right? The crazy devil-demon had probably just gotten it all wrong...

But the devil-demon had said that he could call him for help. Even if the old-man _him_ set the demon straight on that whole family-priority thing being a complete load of bunk, the devil-demon…

...might still want to talk to him, to help him out anyway? ...Hell. What would the devil-demon want for doing that, if Stan asked him for it? Did he _really_ want to risk that? What would happen if he did that?

...that older Ford might still want to talk to him, though. Maybe. He'd seemed…

Stan swallowed hard around a lump in his throat.

(... _they'd_ made it worse. They had--)

(And then it occurred to Stan to wonder… would they even be _able_ to help him at all, fixing it? Because this whole thing had started itself off, that whole fight about that stupid project itself, because...)

Stan stared down at the phone, and his hands curled around the edges of it, slightly.

\--The devil-demon had known where his brother was last night. Been able to track him, where he was, somehow. Sixer had gone home, but he couldn't have stayed there with Ma -- Pa would've figured it out, sooner or later, just looking at her -- and now… now Stan didn't know where his twin brother was. (Was he out on the streets someplace? Had… had _the mob_ been out and seen Sixer wandering the streets, to have grabbed him last night while he was on his way back?)

It was gonna be a lot quicker to ask the demon, and find out, than to try and go searching around for Sixer, himself. He had _no idea_ where to start looking.

And if this phone-candy-bar thing didn't work, or if that demon or those other them's didn't want to help out, well… probably better to know that _now_ than later.

Stan stared down at the phone. Glowering, really.

He remembered what the devil-demon had said about turning it on, with pressing and holding down that button on the side of it, and he did that and let go of it.

He stared as the thing made a soft chiming sound, and there was a second or two pause.

...okaaay. What was he supposed to do now?

"Hello?" Stan said, frowning down at the dark brown colored whatever-it-was and feeling stupid, because how was this supposed to be a phone? It sure didn't look like one to him. (What part of it was he supposed to be talking into, even? Let alone listening to--)

He frowned and started to pull it up to his ear, listening for anything else, carefully. And then he jumped in place and pulled it away from him quickly, when he heard Bill say loudly -- like he was in the same _room_ as him! -- "Please turn the device over."

Shit. Stan flipped it over quickly in his hands, and--

\--the other large flat side of the thing looked white now, when Stan had been pretty sure it'd been brown or black-colored before, and on that -- mini TV screen?! -- was Bill. There was a full-body picture of the devil-demon just standing there, in the middle of a big white nothing-space, a white space with nothing in it.

\--A _male_ Bill that was looking out at him, **not** a female-him, which was weird.

"<First-time startup complete, no errors found.>" Bill said in an odd, almost pleasant tone of voice. ("Wait, what?") "<Tutorial loading, please wait.>" A kinda flat tone of voice. ("Bill.") "<\--complete. Final system check-->" (" _Bill!!_ " Damnit! He wasn't even _lookin'_ at him, let alone _listening_ to him, just staring straight ahead and sayin' a bunch of junk that didn't make the _least_ bit of--) "<\--complete. Background connection-->" (--sense, and he _didn't_ freaking have time for this, here--)

"-- _ **Hey!!**_ " Stan cut in loudly, almost yelling at him, and the image of Bill seemed to pause or freeze or something for a moment on that small TV screen-looking thing Stan was holding.

Then the TV image unfroze, and Bill's eyes and head tracked upwards and met his own.

"<\--engaged>, and boy howdy, aren't YOU in a rush," Bill said next, with a bit more personality, and he kicked off the 'ground' to sort of hover-float in place, in the center of the small TV screen there. "<Emergency mode conditions match found>, and what do you want so badly that you don't even want to wait around for a tutorial on how to use this thing, first?" Bill asked him next, first sounding flat, and then sounding almost normal, for the demon.

"Bill," Stan said, reaching for patience, 'cause he _was_ asking the devil-demon for a favor here. "Can you find my--"

"--This is not Bill, this is a program," the male Bill told him. "This is not a 'you', this is an 'it'. This is a non-sapient non-sentient program, a series of scripts--"

"-- _Fine_ , 'a program,'" Stan snarked, cutting it off. "Can you tell me--" he began to ask, except--

"--This is not a 'you'," the stupid thing started to repeat again, in the _exact_ same way as it had before, "This is an 'it'--" and with the thing apparently not being the demon, and Stan just about ready to lose his temper, he snapped out at it:

"--Hey! Just _tell me where my brother is!!_ "

There was a pause, long enough for Stan to start to sweat, 'cause who knew what the devil-demon had set this thing up to do to him, if he got all snappy and disrespectful with it.

And then the (TV?) 'program' said: "<Error, data not populated.>" but right before Stan was about to chuck it across the room for being a complete fucking waste of time, the male Bill on the screen blinked and said, "Which brother?"

Stan paused, blinking himself, because how many brothers did this thing think he had? "Stanford Pines," Stan said, then added after a beat, "My twin. --Same age as me," he added, realizing that he probably oughta make it clear he didn't mean the older Ford over there. "--Number of years old, whatever."

There was another pause.

"<Local database search. No match found.>" Stan twitched. "<Status check-- complete. Priority-- calculated. Escalation level 1. Remote database search--> Gimmie a second here, kid." Stan frowned. "<Handshake estab-- Processing req-- Data retrieved.>" the thing said next, speeding up its talking but still cutting itself off several times. "<Match found with less than point-oh-one-percent variability in age.>" was the next thing Stan heard out of the thing at a high rate of speed, before it slowed down again and stopped rattling off what it was trying to say. "Don't know where he is, kid," the ' _program_ ' told him, but before Stan could protest, or demand the thing act like an actual _phone_ for him instead of all this weird 'database' stuff, or anything else-- "<Scanning…> Gonna need to look for him first," Stan was told next.

"How long is this gonna--" _take_ , Stan started to ask, but he was cut off by--

"<Location found.>" the …program-thing... told him. "How d'you want me to show this to you?"

"What?" Stan blinked at it. "Just _tell_ me where he _is!_ "

The program Stan was staring at rattled off some 'distance away' at some random-ass direction in 'degrees' to the north and east, but Stan only had a moment to frown before the program stated, "But that's -- <verbal only> \-- really low information content for current-known capabilities for any human user. Not all that helpful, huh?" the program said next. "You want to -- <Rephrase query?> \-- try that again?" Stan stared down at it, having no idea where to go from here. And then the thing said: "You want a <visual>, maybe?"

"--A map," Stan said next. "Show it to me on a map. Where Ford-- my _twin brother_ is." Last thing he needed right now was for this thing to get confused about which Ford he might be talking about here, wasting even more time after that. "...An, uh, overhead map?"

The image of the male-version of the devil-demon vanished from the screen, and instead a blinking yellow dot and multiple black-outlined blocky boxy-looking shapes -- shit, were those supposed to be buildings? -- were shown on the white background.

"Can't y--" Stan barely caught himself from saying the 'you' and wasting even more time. "Program, where are the roadways?? --On this map," Stan added, as he got up from the table and started reflexively reaching for his coat and wallet and his keys. "Because none of these things look like roadways."

"<Error, undefined landmark.> 'Roadways' are not shown," the program said. "These are general outlines of all <stationary obstacles> in the way between the two of you, at <chest height> and higher, along a direct-line path from your location to <subject match: brother>, with <plus or minus two inches> low fidelity."

Great. No streets or street names, just a bunch of 'stationary obstacle' buildings. (And maybe a couple parked cars, too, Stan realized as he squinted down at it.) Probably explained why this thing seemed so show some huge cutoff farther up the way that didn't make a damn bit of sense. Glass Shard Beach wasn't all that hilly, but there was still kind of an incline as you went up the streets.

"Where am I on this thing?" Stan groused out next, as he gave up on squinting at the screen and shoved his hand into his other pocket for his glasses. And by the time he'd finished putting the stupid geeky things on, a second yellow dot that wasn't blinking had showed up on the screen. "Great. --Maybe wanna add some kinda compass rose to this thing for me, too?" he tried next, as he started heading for the door to the cabin. It took a few seconds, but then he got himself one of those, along with everything else. "...Fantastic." He still didn't know where Ford was...

"There any way that…" _you can show me_ \-- no, shit, leave out the 'you'… "Uh, to show me what this building looks like?" Stan asked the 'program' on the screen, as he walked his way out of the cabin on-deck and pulled the door closed behind him, locking it with his new keys.

"<Error, query too vague.> Which building?" the program asked him.

Ughhhh… "The thing that it looks like my brother is inside!" Stan told it, starting to lose his patience again, as he stomped his way across the deck, headed for the gangplank to the dock. Then, as the program paused, almost seemed to be hesitating, Stan added quickly, "Show me the outside of that whole building, front to back, not the roof of it or… underneath," Stan tried next, "Just all around the sides of it," and he was starting to get the idea that this program thing was almost like some kind of a dumb robot, with a bunch of 'processing's instead of 'beep-boop's in there, one that didn't know what the hell to do for you unless you told it--

"<Designation updated. --'Building' identification confirmed. Visualization command confirmed. Processing...>"

\-- _exactly_ what you wanted. Because this thing was something that the _devil-demon_ had made, and you had to be careful with your wording with demons, what all you said and what you left out. Like that first day after Sixer had gotten kicked out of the house there last week, when they'd gone back to the house to grab stuff -- his brother had almost not had all his schoolwork because he'd only asked for his bookbag, but not all the papers and books and stuff inside, too.

Stan was frowning down at the screen, thinking three steps ahead as he went about what he was gonna maybe have to do to get Sixer safe again -- would it even work, calling the police? had somebody kidnapped him, wanting to know more about the whole 'sea monster' thing? -- but he stopped dead in place as the program 'ding'ed at him, and he saw the 'view from above' zoom in and spiral down, to slowly pan around the entire face of the building, shown to him in black-and-white-and-grey clear relief.

"...That's our school," Stan said numbly, wondering what the hell was going on, and what Sixer could possibly be doing there. He barely heard the program talking something at him again (saying, "<Designation updated.>") before he said out loud to himself, "Wait… what time is it?"

Except the program didn't know he was talking to himself, and it told him.

\--Which had Stan staring down at it for a moment, before he glanced around quickly, started for the gangplank, then stopped on a dime as he realized something, then turned and bolted for the ladder belowdecks.

Because he'd never actually gotten around to pulling all their stuff up to the cabin on deck last night from belowdecks. He'd been too worried pacing, and then trying to stay up all night, waiting for Sixer to come home again. --To come back. (...Shit, was the boat really their home now? ...It really really was, wasn't it?)

Stan jumped boxes and crates as he practically sprinted for their temporary sleeping area belowdecks, after sliding two-handed down the sides of the ladder. Once he was there, he looked around quickly, then started grabbing clothing almost at random and stuffing it into the nearest bookbag, before shouldering it and racing back for the ladder -- because his twin was gonna want a change of clothing, sure, but Sixer needed his schoolwork even more. If Sixer lost points on any more stuff at school over this thing because he was missing his books and his homework, Stan would never hear the end of it.

And Stan was running so close to being late for homeroom already just then that he didn't even bother trying to check which bookbag was which as he did so. He just grabbed them both up -- not caring which one was which, just knowing that he'd have all of Sixer's stuff in them this way, if he grabbed them up both -- when he shouldered the first one with the clothing he'd stuffed inside it, and started climbing right back up again quickly.

\---


	2. Chapter 2

\---

Stan was almost panting for breath as he entered the school. The boat on the beach was almost twice the distance away from the school as their home, and he wasn't exactly built for long-endurance running. (Running from the cops and dodging down alleyways to hide, or weaving around people disappearing into crowds, was one thing, but a continuous long and straight run? That was something he hadn't had to do since middle school, and it left him a little winded--)

He got in the doors and he stopped, realizing he didn't actually know which way to go next. Was Sixer in homeroom already? (In the same clothes as yesterday?) Had he come in early to maybe try and talk with their science teach? (He'd want to do that, after what had happened with his grades, and he hadn't really gotten the chance away from the demons after finding that one out last Friday, after that weekend. What with being too distracted by the dragon-lady before, and not being able to talk at anybody properly after… and only actually taking the whole thing apart, trying to figure out exactly what-all had actually gone wrong with it, only last night...)

...or had he wandered the streets most of last night, refusing to come back to the boat where his broken science fair project ~~(and him)~~ was, just waiting to be able to come on in early to one of the few places that Sixer felt safe in the city. (Was he hiding in the corner of a classroom in here?)

So Stan shoved his hand into his pocket, shifting the two bookbags over on shoulder in place a bit, as he looked down at the map-thing and tried to figure out...

"Uh, Program?" he said. "Can this thing maybe show me the inside walls instead of just all of the outside ones, here?"

"Listen, kid," he got back from it, as the male-looking 'Bill'-program drifted back onto the screen, over the map that was still showing. "You didn't do the tutorial. This thing is a talking dictionary and a phone, with a little more junk added in. It isn't programmed to do any more than the <system administrator> gave it to start with. If you want to know how to use it, say you want to run the tutorial. If you want anything else that's nonstandard that this thing _might_ be able to do for you, you either need to _explain_ it <define your commands> better, or _call_ the <system administrator> who can."

Shit. "How do I call him?" Stan asked next, even though he really didn't want to. But he also didn't want to waste a bunch of time, trying to go through a maze of hallways while trying to get to his brother, when none of them were showing up on this stupid thing. All it was showing right now was the building, and two dots -- one of them blinking -- and they were almost right on top of each other from above. He couldn't really tell where to go next, in order to get to his brother. (For all he knew, Sixer might be up on the roof, or down in the boiler room in the basement. ...If this place even had a basement. He was pretty sure it did, but he didn't know how far the whole thing went--) But the demon had made this thing in the first place and told him to call if he ever needed help or anything. So a couple seconds on the phone should be okay and enough to find Sixer, right?

"<Warning.>" the program told him. "See that little icon up there?" It pointed up at a small black triangle with a white outline in the upper-left corner of the little TV screen. "The <system administrator >\--"

"Bill Cipher," Stan told it with a frown, wondering why this thing didn't even know--

"<Designation updated.> \-- _That guy_ is currently asleep. He has standing orders that he doesn't want to be woken up unless this thing hits escalation level 3. _You're_ sitting at escalation level 1 right now," the program told him. "Calling him while asleep at this low an escalation level means <Confirmation of manual escalation level increase required.>" And then the program suddenly seemed very different, looked almost ominous, as it gave him a steely-eyed glare. " _{You really want to do this thing, kid?}_ "

Stan felt a shiver go down his spine as he straightened in place, even as the program stopped seeming all scary again. And it took him a moment to realize exactly why.

\--It was because that hadn't been the program talking to him. That had been some straight-up type of recording. The program was male. The devil-demon was a guy, but he was female. And the two of them sounded a little different because of that.

Stan swallowed in a suddenly dry mouth, not so sure that he _wanted_ to call the devil-demon anymore, after hearing all that.

"What's escalation level 3?" Stan asked the thing he was holding.

"Everything is on fire and you are about to die now," the program told him matter-of-factly, just rattling it off like it was telling him the time or the weather.

Stan stared down at the thing.

"...Right," Stan muttered. "Let's, uh… Maybe not do that thing, then," Stan told the program slowly. (Last thing he needed was for the devil-demon to wake up in a bad mood and decide that maybe he should _make_ things a _real_ 'escalation level 3' for him and setting everything on fire before helping him out, so that he'd know what it'd look like, in case he thought about calling him again for something the devil-demon probably considered stupid and not worth his time anyway.)

And then Stan winced as the bell for starting homeroom rang loudly, then glared up at it and grimaced. (Damn it! He'd wanted to get to Sixer before they were supposed to _be_ anywhere today, so that maybe he could spend some time calming him down--)

" _{Listen, kid,}_ " he heard the recording of the devil-demon tell him next, " _{You don't need me for this. You've got this thing here, and you're not stupid; use it.}_ "

Stan looked back down at the rectangular phone thing, stunned.

And the program looked innocently back up at him and said, "<Rephrase query?>"

...Damnit. Damnit, okay. He could do this. (Hell, calling was still on the table as a last resort, anyway. Sixer probably wasn't stuck someplace in the school _dying_ , but Stan didn't know that for absolute _sure_ right now himself, which meant the devil-demon probably wouldn't, either -- not without checking for him first.) "How long does the tutorial take?" Stan asked it, starting at the start.

"<Indeterminant.>" the program told him. But before he could ask the next most obvious question, it was already telling him, "Six minutes minimum, if you go speeding through it, kid."

Okay. Homeroom was fifteen minutes, and they were already at least two minutes into it. So if he couldn't figure this out in a minute or two, he'd bite the bullet and try whatever 'tutorial' this thing had, to maybe see if it could help out with things any better.

Stan grimaced and moved over closer to the nearest wall, to lean up against it. (He tried not to thing about how stupid he'd probably looked to anyone else in the hallways before, staring at his open hand and looking like he was talking to himself like this.)

...The hell had it said to him before? "This whole map thing," Stan said slowly. "It's all… general outlines." He frowned a little. "Stationary obstacles in the way, at some height and some-inches fidelity, or whatever. I gotta give a query that asks for something like that, for this thing to show the map differently, right?"

"<Structure of proposed query> would work just fine for showing things differently to you, kid," the program told him. "What all do you want this to show?"

Ugh, this was hard. He didn't know how this thing was supposed to work, and he wasn't used to thinking about anything in this way. ...Okay, height, fidelity, stationary, what else. "I can tell this map thing to pan around things and zoom in from above too, right?" It had kind of done that earlier for him.

"Yes," he was told.

Stan pulled in a breath, thinking. "How about…" he stared off into the distance for a moment, then looked around the empty hallway at everything there. "Stationary obstacles at head-height that would be in the way of me walking," he told it, trying to think about what this might look like. "And… that's just anything that I'd hit my head on completely," so, a solid wall, right? "Anything solid that don't have a hole in it bigger than five inches or so." Stan wasn't sure if any doors would show up on that or not if they were closed instead of open, but if he could just get the walls showing, he could follow the hallways and figure out the room, to take it from there.

"<Processing.>" it told him, and then the screen updated.

"Move outta the way so I can see this, yeah?" Stan said, making a shooing motion with his hand to the left, and the program vanished back off the side of the little TV screen into nothing. The building (labeled with 'school') looked like a mess of black lines on the inside of it, now. So did every other building that he could see.

"Zoom in a lot from above, not sure how many times," Stan told it next, thinking of those microscopes sitting in the science classrooms, "But not so much that me and my brother don't show up on the screen," he told it, and it did that too, right away, without even one of those 'processing's.

Stan frowned.

As he started moving forward at a fast clip (and a sinking feeling in his stomach), he asked the program, "Is my brother on the same--" _floor_ , but if the damn thing didn't know what walls were, then… "--height-level as me?" Man, that didn't sound right.

"Height measurement, bottom of feet from top of head at full muscular extension, is within zero-point-one inches of your height measurement," he was told, and Stan grimaced as he turned the corner, starting to walk a little faster, at not quite a jog.

"That's not--" Shit, how would Sixer put this in nerd-robot talk? "Is the height difference between the bottom of my brother's feet and my feet less than--" it took him a second, he didn't want either of them _walking_ throwing it off-- "Is there less than six feet difference vertically between where the soles of my feet are and where the soles of his feet are?" Stan asked next.

"Yes. There is less than two inches difference."

Okay, so they really were on the same floor. Which meant--

Stan sped up to a jog -- not like there were any teachers around to see him right now -- and rounded the next corner to slam his way through the door into the main office.

Because what Sixer would be doing in the principal's office right now just _couldn't_ be good--

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	3. Chapter 3

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Stan blew past the front counter and the secretary who stood up and called out to him, stuffing the rectangular phone-thing back in his pocket (he'd checked right before he'd slammed his way into the office, just to be sure -- Sixer really was in that room, _specifically_ ), right before he grabbed the doorknob to the principal's office and shoved the door open.

"Ford--" (he almost called him 'Sixer' as he stormed in, a twin on a mission to rescue his brother, and only just remembered in time that his brother didn't like it when he called him that in front of other people.) "--are you o--"

But Stan stopped short as he went from 'twin on a mission', to actually seeing who-all was in the room.

"--kay…?" he lamely trailed off, as he watched the principal stare out at him over his desk, and Sixer _and both their parents_ turned around in place to stare at him over the backs of their chairs…

"...Uh…" Stan glanced around at all of them, trying to read the room and the situation.

\--and what was _Carla_ doing over there, standing in the corner, arms crossed and hunched in on herself a little bit? She didn't look so great. ...Was she in trouble for throwing out almost everybody's projects, or something? That seemed like something Sixer would definitely complain to the principal about. But then why were their parents here? Stan was drawing a complete blank on this thing here, and...

Pa turned back around in his chair and he said firmly, "I want him kicked out of this school."

Stan straightened in place, fists clenched, and he nearly saw red.

"--Like _HELL_ are you throwing _my brother_ out of this school!" Stan thundered out, stomping forward and grabbing him up by the lapels, yanking him up out of his chair and seeing red, about to put a fist through his old man's hateful, never-impressed ugly mug. (Because wasn't kicking him outta the house already enough for his old man, and way way beyond that too much that--?!) "You--!"

"He meant _you_ ," was the principal's dry contribution to his declaration, and that had Stan stopping short all over again.

"What?" Stan said, his head whipping around towards the principal, his fists slowly unclenching (and letting go of his old man as he did so) as he stood there in place, now all kinds of lost. Stan glanced around at all of them as Pa stood up straight and adjusted his collar with not quite a snort (before Pa turned back away from him, sitting back down in his chair) and -- was this a joke? But when he looked down at his brother, who was not quite shrinking in place, not looking at him, even though Sixer's jaw was kind of firm…

"I don't want that knucklehead sabotaging my son any further," his Pa said next, talking about him like he wasn't even there and... and Stan's head was swimming with all sorts of confusion here, now.

"You shouldn't prevent Stan from trying to get an education--" Sixer began quietly, still turned around in his chair towards him, but Sixer flinched and stopped talking, lowered his head again as their Pa turned his head towards him. (Stan could see how Sixer's fists were clenched in his lap, though, and how tense his shoulders were under the cringe.)

"I don't want that good-for-nothing still going to this school, sabotaging my son's grades again," Pa repeated. "Pull him out. He ain't graduating anyway."

Stan frowned a little, finally starting to catch on to what was happening here... though why Pa suddenly cared about that, he couldn't say.

"You can't pull me from school," Stan said, shifting a little in place and feeling a little odd about the whole thing. "Me and S-Ford, we both re-registered last week." He shifted the bookbags by the straps he was carrying over his shoulder, and his frown deepened. "You don't got any say on anything to do with me anymore, old man," he told his Pa. And that's the way that Stan liked it. "You got a problem with me, go talk to those two old guys who actually care," Stan shot out at him next, knowing he was putting himself out on a limb there (since the two of 'em were gone now, and not plannin' on coming back), but still. (--Hey, he was pissed!)

"That worthless pair of beach bums can _have_ you," his old man said next, "Getting 'apprenticed' to a pair of dumb con-artists like that suits you," and it didn't take a genius to figure out what kind of cold unamused glare was probably sitting behind his pa's sunglasses, there.

It still got Stan's goat, and he felt his back stiffen as he drew himself up, about to read his pa the riot act -- nobody talked about Sixer that way, not even some older version of him who Stan didn't really know! Ford wasn't some con-artist, or a liar, or any kind of dumb!

"--but I'm not about to let you drag down the only son of mine that actually has a chance to _make_ something of himself instead of being a useless waste of space," Pa told them all next, and it left Stan feeling cold.

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End file.
